@angusm@mastodon.social
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angusm

@angusm@mastodon.social

I play with words, cameras & computers

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angusm, to random
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

Not today, Satan!

Someone I follow on BlueSky posted a skeet with the words “If you see this, post a dog,” so I went to my photo archives to see what I had that might be appropriate.

Long story short, I decided that my picture titled “Thịt chó" was probably NOT the right thing to post, and my restraint in this matter is the reason why I have not yet been blocked by EVERYONE on BlueSky.

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross I know what you're trying to do here, Stross. I'm not falling for that one.

An animated image of Tom Hardy as Max in the film “Mad Max: Fury Road”. Hardy shakes his head and points at something offscreen. The words “That’s bait” printed in white are superimposed on the image.

osma, to Ukraine
@osma@mas.to avatar

US Air Force is buying add-on seekers designed to give JDAM-ER glide bombs supplied to Ukraine the ability to zero in on GPS jammers. This would turn one of the weapons most impacted by this countermeasure into one used to directly attack it.

https://www.twz.com/air/jdam-er-winged-bombs-with-seekers-that-home-in-on-gps-jammers-headed-to-ukraine

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@osma The reports I've seen suggest that the Russian GPS jammers (or at least the most powerful ones that have been disrupting air and sea traffic) are operating from fairly deep inside Russia (plus Kaliningrad). Maybe they have more local ones for battlefield use, but hitting any of the ones that have been making the news would be (a) more challenging, and (b) a significant escalation.

angusm, to random
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

This excellent article by @molly0xfff reminded me of the sci-fi trope where everyone in the future lives in a domed bunker & gets told not to go outside because it's a wasteland filled with Bad People.

Of course the protagonists leave the dome & find that the reality is a bit different: outside can be scary, but it's not the hellscape they were told.

Big Tech walled gardens are the dome; outside them is a risky wonderland that’s ours for the taking.

Leave the dome.

https://www.citationneeded.news/we-can-have-a-different-web/

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

TBH, putting "GIANT MURDER ____" in front of virtually any animal species' name makes it worse, except for Tyrannosaurs (where it's kind of redundant)

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross

Pro-tip: it's hard to get people to take you seriously if you put "GIANT MURDER" in front of the name of a domesticated species:

GIANT MURDER COW

GIANT MURDER SHEEP

GIANT MURDER RABBIT

GIANT MURDER HAMSTER

GIANT MURDER LLAMA

GIANT MURDER GOLDFISH

GIANT MURDER LLAMA

angusm, to random
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

As businesses and interest groups increasingly move to Discord, it starts to feel incredibly ripe for .

Discord is a natural “point of capture": if you build a community there (as a user or a server owner), it's very unclear to me if you could easily migrate away to something else if it turns nasty.

And there are probably commercial incentives for Discord to change in ways that will hurt users: monetizing user data, intrusive ads, etc.

I would be wary of committing too much.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Only plain fabric is allowed in this chruch, obviously.
https://unfufadoo.net/@english/112359529662303787

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross @english And don't even get me started about the muslins.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

My current nightmare is that the Tories will be hammered so hard this Thursday that the back benches will run a leadership challenger against Sunak ...

… And the party rank and file will then vote Liz Truss in again as party leader.

She's had a year to lick her wounds and work out what she did wrong, and in her tiny mind it can only be that she didn't do everything fast enough and hard enough.

So we'll get a Liz Truss equivalent of the US Republicans' Project 2025.

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@zip @cstross If she gets a second term, the Admiralty will probably just issue all the subs with a letter that reads “In case of emergency, ask the lettuce what to do.”

angusm, to random
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

My employer's website: “We're denormalizing the biostatic conglomeration of cromulent anaglyphs for just-in-time metempsychosis.”

Recruiter's unsolicited email to me: "Angus -- love how you're denormalizing the biostatic conglomeration of cromulent anaglyphs for just-in-time metempsychosis! At SpamCo, we specialize in finding top-tier talent …”

Me: Very authentic opening, sir, yes, you have absolutely persuaded me that I wish to do business with you.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Welp, looks like the next global pandemic just dropped: https://www.etvbharat.com/en/!state/jharkhand-two-doctors-six-others-quarantined-amid-bird-flu-outbreak-in-ranchi-enn24042801155

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross It's not as if we haven't known “grinding up dead animals and feeding them to other animals” is a bad idea for, oh, four decades at least. I still can't give blood in the US because I lived in the UK during the Mad Cow years. But, naturally, agribusiness never wanted to learn that lesson because, hey, what else are we going to do with all these dead chickens?

New industry rule: before you can feed it to the livestock, you have to feed it to the CEO. That should take care of the issue.

angusm, to random
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

Looking forward to reading this.

angusm, to Cats
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

Two cats of Place Lahdim, Meknès, Morocco, who stopped by our table to inform us that there is a 10% tax on all food items purchased, payable immediately to the official representatives of the El-Hedim Square Cat Union. Seemed like a shakedown, but what can you do?

donni, to random
@donni@mastodon.social avatar

We never talk about how global warming might cause violent superpenguins

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@donni Not so loud. The superpenguins will hear you.

angusm, to scifi
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

INTERIOR, CLARION UCSD WRITER’S WORKSHOP, 2013

Karen Joy Fowler: Cory told me that you, and I quote, "knocked it out of the park" last week.

Me: (flustered) Uh … I … well, I, uh, wrote a story I thought he might like. As I did with Bob … I mean, I don't TAILOR my stories to each instructor but–

KJF: –but you thought @KellyLink and I would enjoy a story about eating children?

Me: Uh …

Anyway, the story that @pluralistic liked is in ParSec today:

https://angus.pw/writing/ghost-shift/

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross @KellyLink @pluralistic Has ... has your agent MET any of your readers?

JamesGleick, to random
@JamesGleick@zirk.us avatar

In your worst nightmare, did you consider the possibility that Trump would at the last minute:

—toss out the laughable argument that it didn’t matter what crimes he had committed, it didn’t matter whether or not he was guilty, because he had been president, and presidents are allowed to break the law—they’re “immune”;

—and then, after all the lower courts had swiftly and irrefutably explained how absurd that was, (1/2)

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross @JamesGleick The notion of unrestricted presidential immunity may seem absurd, but you have to consider the original intent of the founders.

Which was shaped by English common law precedent, so here the Court cites in support the following judgement by Sir Gletherington Bollock-Tawny, Frogstrangler General to Empress Matilda, whose argument before the Court of Petit Mulchings in 1142 held decisively that …

geerlingguy, to random
@geerlingguy@mastodon.social avatar

If IBM decides to merge Terraform and Ansible, would that be Terrible?

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@geerlingguy Or Anseriform?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anseriformes

arstechnica, to random
@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

You can now buy a flame-throwing robot dog for under $10,000

Thermonator, the first "flamethrower-wielding robot dog," is completely legal in 48 US states.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/you-can-now-buy-a-flame-throwing-robot-dog-for-under-10000/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@arstechnica “The dog incinerated my homework.”

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Sunak claims there is 'element of compassion' to Rwanda policy because it is meant to stop dangerous Channel crossings:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/apr/23/global-system-refugee-rights-risk-rwanda-bill-un-council-europe-conservatives-rishi-sunak-labour-uk-politics-latest-updates?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-6627939a8f08e572db12589d#block-6627939a8f08e572db12589d

Hypocritical bullshit like this convinces me that Sunak is cynically playing to the Tory membership base because they won't let him fix the actual underlying problems.

And Starmer is just as bad, beating the English Nationalist drum for all he's worth.

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross Obviously, there's “an element of compassion" in Texas's sadistic razor buoys in the rio Grande, because they are meant to discourage people from risking their lives by trying to swim the river.

And if those prove inadequate, I'm sure they'll be ready to put up some compassionate machine-gun towers or lay a compassionate minefield or two.

angusm, to Cats
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

For , this is George, from London.

I am told by those who know George well that he is not an intellectual giant. Nevertheless, he is very floofy and quite friendly.

verge, to random
@verge@mastodon.social avatar

Make robots hairy https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/18/24133547/boston-dynamics-atlas-robot-hairy

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@verge Sasbotch

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

So of course it is in my headcanon that Dr. Phibes' muse Vulnavia writes Fantômas fanfic in her spare time between murdering their enemies by sneaking rabid weasels into their underpants drawer. Right?

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@cstross Unfortunately, the title “The Stoat among the Skivvies" would only work in the US, just as "Weasels in the Y-Fronts” might not work outside the UK or Australia. Titles are hard.

angusm, to random
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

I’m not saying that I’m easily distracted, but I owe my entire career to the fact that smartphones and the Web weren’t invented when I was in college.

angusm, to ai
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

Anyone who fears that we may be wiped out by artificial intelligence should just buy a robot vacuum cleaner and watch the unshakable determination with which it returns, over and over again, to the one corner of the room where it gets stuck every time.

A realistic “Terminator" movie would consist of two hours of well-meaning humans patiently disentangling the T-800 from the rug or dragging it out from under the bookshelf while it beeps pathetically for assistance.

lauren, to random
@lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org avatar

BREAKING: AI that targets civilians: 'The machine did it coldly': Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets - AI may turn out to be the most horrific tech creation in history. It doesn't need to take over the world itself -- all it needs is humans acting on its advice. - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes

angusm,
@angusm@mastodon.social avatar

@lauren The AI is almost an irrelevance here. By the sound of it, they might as well have torn random pages out of the Gaza phone book and handed them off to the mission planners and the result wouldn't have been very different.

Which is possibly what they would have done if they hadn't had an "AI" to make it all look scientific.

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